ATI Readies the Mobile CrossFire Technology

Nvidia announced almost six months ago the SLI technology for laptops, showcasing it on a Dell model with two GeForce 6800Ultra Go boards. Now ATI is readying to counterattack the SLI technology with a mobile CrossFire version.

The CrossFire technology, just like SLI, brings gaming to a whole new experience by accelerating games using the power of multiple GPUs (Graphic Processing Engine).

ATI showcased to its partners a laptop featuring a Mobility X800XT board in CrossFire mode, in a MXM module. In time, Mobility X1800, X1600 and X1300 will arrive too.

For the desktop counterparts, new CrossFire graphic boards are also available, but unlike Nvidia's SLI system, they don't have an internal connector for hooking up to another board. In order, ATI brought on the market the master and slave graphic board concept.

In other words, the old graphic board will be used as the slave board, and the new CrossFire one will act as the master one. But the master board needs a new connector, known as a dongle, as you can see in the picture above.